This One is Different, Honest
by cypsiman2
Summary: Yoko Sakaki had a habit of picking up strays, small critters in trouble with nowhere to go, no one to take care of them, nowhere to turn. As it turns out, this was how she met the man who would later become her husband.
1. Chapter 1

This One is Different, Honest.

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Yoko Sakaki had promised her mother, promised with her hands out in the open and her socks off so that she couldn't get away with having anything crossed, that she wouldn't bring back anymore strays; no dogs, no cats, no squirrels, not a single living creature that was down on its luck and needed a home even for a night. Still, Yoko looked down at the unconscious boy face-down at her feet, his top-hat broken at the top, his hair all greasy and dirty underneath it, his fingernails with dirt underneath them, and rationalized that a human being was different from any old animal and so her promise to her mother, despite the broad category of any living creature, did not apply. "Hey." She was down on her haunches, she nudged his shoulder. "You awake?" She heard a mumble, saw his head rise while the rest of his body stayed still. "Thirsty?" He opened his mouth, he had thin hair over and under his mouth. Yoko took out her water bottle from her bag and put it over his mouth, he drank from it in a way that reminded her of a puppy she'd found two years earlier.

"Thank you." He had a smile like she'd given him thousand year old wine. "I'm, I'm afraid I can't repay you with money, but if you were to feed me, and let me have access to a bath and some fresh laundry, I could give you a show that you would never forget."

"Hmph, is that how you pay for everything?" Yoko sighed; it probably was, there were patches and holes all over his clothes, and they really did look like they might have been good clothes once upon a time. "All right, but you're going to have to be quiet, I'm certain my mother would object to me sneaking you into my home."

"Your Mother?" The man blinked. "Huh, I would have figured you'd be living on your own already."

Yoko felt a twitch at the corner of her eye. "And just how old do you think I am?"

"Old enough to have the maturity to forgive a homeless boy the error of his ways?"

"...if your feet are as fast as your tongue, you should be a great entertainer." Yoko reached under him and hefted him up onto her shoulders.

"I can walk you know." He pushed back, stumbled, Yoko caught him again. "I assure you, I'm normally much more graceful than that."

"We'll see." Yoko carried/lead the boy back towards her house, which was still a fair way off.

"Yusho." She turned her head at his face, wrinkled her nose at his breath. "Sorry, I just wanted to tell you my name."

"Yusho..." No family name given; whatever story was there would have to wait until after he'd gotten his teeth brushed and flossed and had a gallon of mouthwash rinsed thoroughly. "Yoko Sakaki, that's my name."

Yusho nodded and kept silent, but his eyes spoke to her, they had that inner light quality to them; they told her he was not going to forget her name, even after they'd parted.


	2. Chapter 2

Hiding a Boy in the Basement

Yoko lowered Yusho down behind the big tree in her front yard. She'd looked out the front window enough times to know that her parents wouldn't be able to see him at that angle. "Now, you hold on a little while Yusho; I need to make sure that you won't get spotted going in. I can't exactly smuggle you in my coat pocket or the like."

"I wouldn't mind trying." He tried to chuckle, and let out a hacking cough for his trouble. "But I think I'll wait here anyway."

"Very good." She left him there and walked up to her front door. She opened it up, careful to be as casual as she could manage, not too fast and not too slow, nothing out of the ordinary with her. "Mom, Dad, I'm back!" She called out, she wanted them to know, she wanted their attention all on her. "Are you upstairs?"

"Yes we are," her mom said. "How did the job search go?" Yoko bit her lip; even before she'd stumbled upon Yusho on that crowded sidewalk, with everyone just walking around his slumped over body, she hadn't been looking for work at all.

"Um, I'll come up and tell you in just a second." She leaned out the front door and motioned Yusho in, she scuffled the throw rug so that it would point to the basement, took off her shoes, and then went on up to her parents. She found them in their room, reading their books; it was like the fates were conspiring to make sure she'd be able to sneak Yusho in. Like they wanted her to get away with this. "Well, I went to that new pet store, the one that opened up last week. Himemiya's Home." That was true, Yoko was being entirely honest so long as she went no further. "But uh, they said they'd already hired everyone they needed."

"But you did leave your application with them, yes?" Yoko's father looked up from his book, large watery eyes behind broad-rimmed glasses. Yoko hoped that her eyes didn't start watering, didn't make him think something was wrong.

"Of course." Yoko bowed to her father, belatedly. She did the same to her mother.

"Did you remember your letter of recommendation?" Her mother had piercing black eyes that Yoko was convinced could read the fine print of a contract from across the room. Even the least little waver in her own eyes would prove fatal.

"I did." Yes, she remembered to leave it stuffed in her desk along with all the rest.

"Very good." She looked back down at her book. "Just remember dear, if you do get employment there, you cannot bring any of the animals back with you, no matter how generous the employee discount."

"Of course. After all, I promised I wouldn't." Yoko ears perked up; she heard the click she'd been waiting for. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to get a snack to eat."

"All right dear," her father said, "but be sure not to spoil your appetite for dinner."

"Of course." Yoko bowed again, then went back downstairs. She picked up the shoes that Yusho had left behind, noted the hole in the heel of the left shoe, then ran to the kitchen and quickly put together some sandwiches, not even bothering to toast the bread or anything like that.

"Yo," Yusho said to her as soon as she'd set foot into the basement, the light already on. "Been a while since I was in a place like this." He sniffed, salivated, his stomach grumbled.

"Here you go." Yoko gave the food to him and he snarfed it down right away, making a terrible mess of crumbs and bits of meats and cheeses and lettuce leafs. She restrained the urge to pick up after him, or to remove his hat so as to rustle his hair. "Well, I'm going to go get some toiletries. Once my Mom and Dad are out of their room, I'm going to have to sneak into my Dad's and get a fresh change of clothes so we can get yours washed." In the confined space of the basement, Yusho's odor could not be ignored; if either of her parents came down, they'd immediately know that something was up.

"You're certainly going through a lot of trouble on my account." Yusho patted his chest and rubbed his stomach. "Rest assured, I will tell your parents that I threatened you and forced you into taking me to your home."

Yoko smirked. "You don't think I could convince them?"

He stood up and hunched over, let his hair droop over his eyes. He put a hand in his pocket. "How about now?" He'd affected a rasp, let his tongue hang out a moment.

"Well, they didn't see you when I'd found, so they might buy that." Yoko crossed her arms over her chest. "Just tell me you'll do better than that when you give me your performance."

"Of course." He dropped back down, his face bright again. "I'm much better when I've rehearsed, you can take my word for it."

"I suppose I'll have to." So she left Yusho alone while she went back up to get the supplies that would hopefully rid him of the stench that he'd carried in with him.


	3. Chapter 3

Cleanup and Discovery

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"All right," Yoko presented Yusho with the bag of toiletries she'd gathered for him. "Get started." She'd exercised sufficient patience; her new guest could start following through on his promises.

"As you wish." He took the bag and opened it up, pulled out the sanitizer and rubbed it on his palms and all over his face. She watched him rub and scrub. "Ah, that definitely does the trick." He let out a satisfied sigh like he'd just taken a drink of something sweet and carbonated, and Yoko looked at him again. Yusho made a lopsided grin that drew attention to his cheek. "Stunned?"

"How… how old are you exactly?" He'd called himself a homeless boy earlier, but all the grime and dirt had concealed just how smooth his features were, how sparse that mustache of his really was.

"Hmm, today is the 17th, yes?" Yoko nodded. "Then my fifteenth birthday is just a week away."

"You're not even fifteen?" She looked him over again, studied again how worn-through his clothes were. "How long have you been living on the street like that?"

Yusho pursed his lips and blew out, whistled. "Oh, a little over two years at this point, I'd say." He reached back into the bag, found mouthwash and a cup. "Ah, the good stuff. Mouthwash isn't mouthwash if it doesn't burn the inside of your mouth just a little, right?" Yoko didn't respond as he filled his mouth with it, made an expression she'd once seen on a man at a Thai Restaurant who'd ordered the spiciest curry he could. He swigged it, puffed his cheeks in and out, in and out, and after a good thirty seconds of this he spat out into the cup. "Wow." He opened his mouth up and moved his teeth together, licked at his teeth with his tongue. "Hmm, not squeaking yet, suppose I'm going to need the toothbrush for that."

Yoko stared at him. She opened her mouth but the words didn't come out. She worked her tongue inside her mouth like she was digging, and she managed to find something. "So I take it you've already forgotten about dental floss then?" That was what she'd said, not what she'd meant to say.

"Huh? Oh, right, I skipped a step there didn't I? Man, I sure lucked out when you found me!" He laughed, and it did not sound like a fifteen year old's laugh. The average fifteen year old hadn't lead the sort of life he had...she hadn't lead that sort of life. All she had in her head were pictures she got from TV and movies and books, and had any of those writers lived that life? She didn't think so.

Then Yoko noticed the echo. "Would you keep it down? My parents do have ears you know." She scolded him like a puppy that was gnawing on the furniture and giving itself away. "Anyway, there's a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and a bottle of water, and a cloth to wipe yourself off with." Of course, even when he was done with all that, there was still the matter of getting him into the bath and his clothes into the laundry...her parents wouldn't be leaving tonight, this wasn't their night out. That wasn't for another three days.

"Something bothering you?" He asked after he'd finished his dental regimen, and rubbed his tongue against his teeth to make them squeak; somehow she imagined him as a child doing it incessantly no matter how his mother told him to stop. The cleanliness of his face and hands and teeth only brought the rest of his scent into a contrast like the taste of sharp cheddar cheese.

Yoko grumbled, there was really no way around it. "I need to get you in the bath, and my parents would notice if the water was running and none of us were in there. So… I'll need to be in there with you." Yoko's face turned red, and so did Yusho's.


	4. Chapter 4

A Curtain Between Them

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**Author's Notes**: Sorry this chapter took so long to get out, my beta lost internet and so I had to wait for them to get it back. But they have, and so here it is!

* * *

"Okay." Yoko said. "You've finished taking everything off, yes?" Yoko faced the shower curtain and tried not to dwell what was behind it.

"Yes I have." Yusho's voice was small, almost a squeak; it was relieving in many ways. She'd brought this strange boy into her home, a boy she'd known nothing about, and he'd acted so confident and calm; she could have had sinister designs on him, yet he never showed any fear even in the deepest parts of his eyes. Now that he was nervous and ill at ease, it reassured Yoko that she hadn't brought in some sort of predator, that he was what he'd first appeared to be: someone down on their luck and in need of being taken care of. "Here." He extended his arm out from behind the curtain. It was rough, but slender; his build was hard to judge, but she could imagine that once he'd had a chance at healthy living he'd have a tall but firm build, something that could fill out a suit very well. "Um, well?" Yoko shook her head, looked back outside her head again. He was holding out his clothes to her, so they wouldn't get wet.

She took the clothes, right away she knew she'd have to wash that hand. Yusho's arm withdrew behind the curtain. "As soon as you're done, I'll hand you the towels, that way..."

"Yes, that sounds good." She heard his feet on the smooth tiles, and then came the water, sweet hot refreshing water that would take away layers of dirt and grime from every nook and cranny in Yusho's body. Yoko looked away and did not think on this at length, not even a little bit; after all, there were so many fascinating patterns to the tiles and the walls, and the medicine in the medicine cabinet needed organizing anyway. What was the Aspirin doing next to the Zyloleft, that wasn't right at all!

"Um, Yoko?" Yoko froze in place. "The, the shampoo bottle in here is empty." It would be. She looked under the counter, she found a fresh bottle, good and heavy, she took it to the curtain.

"Here you are." At that his arm reached back out, and on its way to the shampoo it brushed her shoulder. His hand slowed, lingered, before the fingers pulled back. Yoko pressed the shampoo into his palm. He grabbed and pulled it back in, and he never saw the red that had covered her face. "You um… you finding everything okay?" Was this how this sort of thing worked? Did her parents talk while one of them was in the shower and one of them wasn't? How could she know, she'd die if she did!

"Huh?" He didn't sound like he had any idea either. "Um, yes, the water's good and hot... I've always liked hot showers, even during the summer."

"I see." Yes, good, keep talking about this and that and the other thing. "You uh, ahm, you having any trouble cleaning your back?" CRAP!

"NO!" Yusho shouted, and even over the water Yoko heard footsteps fast approaching. She walked to the door.

"Yoko, is everything all right in there?" _Her mother._ "I thought I heard someone in there with you."

"No Mom, no one's in here with me!" Yoko looked back around the bathroom, saw an outline from behind the curtain. "That was just the radio, I'd left the radio on too loud and it went to a loud commercial."

"I see." Good, good, just walk away. "Don't be too long dear, you don't want to waste water."

"Right, right, won't be but a few minutes more, promise." Yoko listened at the door, listened for her mother's footsteps to grow quieter, and quieter still. "There, that takes care of...that..." Yoko had turned back around, only to realize that the water had stopped running, that the curtain had been pulled aside. Yusho had grabbed the towel fast enough to barely get it around his waist, which still left a lot of him exposed.

Well, at least now she was sure that he would fill out just fine.


	5. Chapter 5

Time for a Show Like no Other!

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Yoko's memory was a bit fuzzy and blurry after what she saw, and almost saw, in the shower. She'd gotten Yusho's clothes into the laundry, she'd dumped one of her Dad's outfits onto him before getting to dinner. Nothing disrupted her unfocused state and so she figured she hadn't said or done anything out of sorts, and so when she'd left the dinner table and saw her parents going to the study, she went back to the basement.

"Ah, good, you got here just in time." Yusho was doing stretches in her father's suit; fortunately it was baggy on him so it wasn't getting stretched with him. Yoko looked at him now, now that he'd been cleaned and dressed and everything; he was good looking, there was no denying that, the kind of guy you could bring home to your parents instead of having to sneak them into your basement.

"Just in time?" Yoko looked around and saw that he'd reorganized stuff and cleared space away.

"Yes, I told you I was going to repay you, and now I am. Please, take a seat." He pointed to a chair with a pillow on it. Yoko took her seat and then Yusho cleared his throat. "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages," he said in a stage shout that filled the basement but would not alert her parents, "you are about to witness a very special production like no other, a once in a lifetime event that you are sure to never forget; I present to you, The Lucky Prince." He took a step to the side and Yoko noticed that he'd set up an old projector; he turned it on, a square patch of the wall lit up and then he put his hands in the way to cast shadows on the wall.

"Once, there was a very lucky prince, though he did not know how lucky he was." He made a shadow puppet of a boy bouncing along just like a real boy skipping here and there. "He lived in a big fancy house that had a big fancy gate," In crude and quick fashion he made the house and then the gates, "and every day at the gate was an old man with a big bushy beard." Somehow he'd conveyed the sense of a beard on that old man, she could fill in the blanks and see who wispy it was.

"Hi mister, have some candy." Yusho said in a high falsetto, the prince's voice.

"Thank you again, prince." Yusho used a scratchy, wheezing voice.

"Every day the prince said hi to the old man and gave him some food and the old man always smiled and said thanks, and the prince thought to himself what a good prince he was to be so kind to the old man."

"My son." Now the shadow was a tall and imperious one, the prince's father, the King. "Your mother and I are very proud of how kind and generous to the old man at the gate." Another shadow, almost as tall as the first, the Queen.

"Thank you Papa, thank you Mama." The little boy bounced, and as he did he got bigger and taller, almost as tall as the king and queen. "But, why does the old man stay at the gate?" Now the prince's voice wasn't so high. "Could we let him stay in our house, maybe just for one night? There's plenty of room and he's such a nice old man, he deserves to have something as nice as that."

"Oh, my dear Prince, the Old Man likes to live at the gate, it would make him very unhappy if you were to be too generous to him." So said the King.

"After all, if you were to bring him into our home, you would have to bring in others and even we can't do that, so it's best that we not play favorites and do what we can for all of them." So said the Queen.

"Oh, okay." The prince walked away, he did not bounce or skip. Yoko tried to understand but couldn't, where on Earth was this story going? How was this the story of a Lucky Prince?

"These words weighed on The Prince's mind, for he knew the King and Queen were wise and caring but something wouldn't settle right. Then, one day, The Prince stood at the gate, and the old man wasn't there anymore." Then came a man in armor, heavy footsteps that made Yoko think of the clanging of metal on the ground. He cleared his throat the way cops would on old TV shows, and he put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"The old man passed away last night; it is a shame, but it was simply his time, nothing that anyone could do about it, not even you." Liar.

"But the Prince knew better; he knew that he could have done something but he hadn't. He marched off to the King and the Queen, his face was red and tears streamed down his eyes and yelled and screamed at them, how he'd thought they were such good people such kind and wonderful people but an old man died and they did nothing for him. They all stood back and watched him waste away until nothing was left of him."

"My son, that is simply how the world is." So said the cold hearted King.

"We would certainly like to change it, but we simply can't." So said the cold hearted Queen.

"The Prince ran to his room, he grabbed his sword and he grabbed his clothes and he ran out from his home and he ran out the gates and he never turned back." The prince slowed down, bit by bit, and fell to the ground. He grew longer, thinner. "And then, a _miracle_." He said the last in a hushed voice.

A new shadow, the tallest one yet, it seemed to fill the room somehow. "Dear prince, why are you so sad?" That voice, Yusho was imitating her voice now, though so much grander than her own, richer and fuller than hers had ever been.

"Because I am no prince, only a vagabond who deserves no better than this." His voice was thick with guilt.

"Now that's not true; take my hand, and I will show you." Yoko extended her hand out too.

"And so the Prince took the stranger's hand and his heart swelled to see that she was wiser and braver than he." Yusho stood up and turned the projector off. "I always like a happy ending; don't you?"

"Yes, yes I do." Yoko smiled as she cried; she would not let this prince back out on the street again, nothing could make her give him up at this point.


End file.
